When two parts are to be connected to each other, e.g., via an adhesive connection, it is generally necessary to hold them together in a tight contact until the adhesive material is completely cured. For this purpose, clamping jigs, threaded connections, binding bands, or the like are normally used. After the adhesive has completely cured, the clamping jig, bolts, or bands are disconnected leaving two parts interconnected through an adhesive layer. An example of such a device is shown in FIG. 1A where two parts 10 and 12 should be interconnected via an adhesive layer 14 that fills a space defined between the parts 10, 12, and sealing strips 16, 18. After the space between the plates and the sealing strips is filled with an adhesive 14, the plates 10 and 12 are clamped and pressed to each other by clamping jigs 20 and 22 via the sealing strips 16 and 18.
In some cases, however, the use of clamping jigs or fasteners is undesirable or merely impossible. Such situations may occur, e.g., in connecting a heatsink to an electronic device. Modern electronics have benefited from the ability to fabricate devices on a smaller and smaller scale. As the ability to diminish the size of devices has improved, so has their performance. Unfortunately, this improvement in performance is accompanied by an increase in power as well as power density in devices. In order to maintain the reliability of these devices, the industry must find new methods to remove this heat efficiently.
A common method used to maintain electronic components at acceptable operating temperatures is to position a planar surface of the electronic component in contact with a planar surface of a heat removal device, such as a heatsink. However, this alone does not provide an adequate thermal interface because when two such surfaces are brought together, less than one percent of the surfaces make physical contact. As much as 99% of the surfaces are separated by a layer of interstitial air. Some heat is transferred at the points of contact, but much of the heat has to travel through the interstitial air gaps. The total thermal resistance through a thermal interface is the thermal resistance at the thermal interface surface of the electronic component, the thermal resistance at the thermal interface of the heat removal device, and the thermal resistance of the material in the interstitial gaps. In order to improve heat-transfer conditions, the gap between the contacting surfaces is sometimes filled with a heat-transfer medium such as a heat-transfer grease.
One way of stabilizing heat-transfer conditions is to use positive pressure means that press the heatsink to the surface of the object to be cooled. One such device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,549,155 issued to G. Meyer, IV in 1996. The device of the aforementioned patent is provided with a heat conductive pad held in contact with the top surface of the chip. The pad is attached to a heat-removing pipe to move the heat away from the chip. One surface of the pad is flat and contacts the circuit chip while the opposite surface of the pad contains a cylindrical groove within which the aforementioned pipe is inserted. The pad includes extensions projecting from its sides, and the extensions are used as surfaces upon which pressure is exerted to hold the pad against the chip.
The heat conductive pad is held against the chip at a predetermined pressure by a flexible holding fixture, which is held at an exact distance above the mounting board by cylindrical spacers through which mounting screws are attached to the mounting board. The holding fixture pushes down on the side extensions of the conductive pad while the top of the pad attached to the heat pipe protrudes through a hole in the holding fixture. The combination of the fixed spacing of the holding fixture above the mounting board, as determined by the mounting spacers, along with the inherent drumhead like resiliency of the holding fixture permits the design of a precise contact pressure between the contact surfaces of the conductive pad and the integrated circuit chip. This predetermined and consistent contact pressure assures that the chip will not be damaged from excess pressure upon it, but also guarantees that the heat transfer surfaces will be in intimate and constant contact. The heat pipe extends to a remote part of the device in which the chip is installed where access to a heatsink or cooling fluid, such as air moved by natural convection, is available. A heat exchanger, such as one or more fins, can be attached to the remote end of the heat pipe so that the heat from the integrated circuit chip is easily transferred to the ambient air. The heat exchanger may be an additional component or an existing part of the equipment, such as a case or a keyboard.
The device of the aforementioned patent has a complicated structure that consists of many parts and occupies a large space. Furthermore, it requires the use of mechanical fasteners, which requires additional labor. Another problem is that traces in a printed circuit board are arranged with a very high density and routing them around the mounting hole for the screws is complicated and very undesirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,699 issued in 2000 to W. Rife discloses a heasink assembly with a retaining clip that has a central member and a number of legs which depending downwardly from the central member with ends of the legs not connected to the central member being free ends. Retention members are provided on each of the free ends of the legs to prevent the legs from being removed from their respective mounting holes. A heat dissipating member, having a threaded base portion is threadably received in a bore in the central member so that the flat bottom surface of the heat dissipating member is in flush thermal communication with the electronic component while the legs are secured within their respective holes in the electronic component. This device is also complicated in structure and occupies an extra space. If an extra pressure is accidentally applied to the chip through the threaded heatsink, this can easily damage the chip.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,697 issued in 2001 to K. McCullough describes a heatsink assembly, having a number of mounting holes and installed on a heat generating surface of an electronic component for removing heat therefrom. A heat-dissipating member having a base portion having a bottom surface and an upper surface with heat dissipating elements connected thereto is provided. The bottom surface is adapted to be matable in flush thermal communication with a heat-generating surface of an electronic component. A cam assembly includes a support body as well as a connection body that is pivotally connected thereto about a pivot axis. At least one leg is connected to the support body with a retention member on its free end. The leg is routed through a selected one of the base apertures and one of the mounting holes corresponding thereto. The connection body is rotated about the pivot axis to provide a camming action against the top surface of the base portion of the heat dissipating member to maintain the heat dissipating member in flush thermal communication with the heat generating surface of the electronic component. The retention member on the leg prevents the leg from being removed from the apertures in which is resides thus maintaining the connection body in communication with the top of the base of the heat dissipating member. This device of this patent is complicated and contains a number of moveable mechanical elements. The load applied to the chip by the cam is not controlled and may damage a delicate chip.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,042 issued in 2004 to B. Boudreaux, et al. describes a heatsink that includes at least one thermally conductive pedestal, allowing configuration of the heatsink to maintain contact with a heat-generating electronic device or a plurality of devices where the devices may not be co-planar due to tolerance stack-up. The pedestals may be raised and lowered and tilted as needed to match the heights and tilts of the electronic devices. Within the heatsink is a cavity above the pedestal that may be filled with a thermally conductive material, such as solder, or a thermally conductive liquid, during construction to create a low thermal resistance contact between the pedestal and the heatsink fins. Also, thermally conductive material, such as thermal paste or a thermal pad, may be used between the heat generating device and the pedestal to create a low thermal resistance contact. A disadvantage of this device is that it requires the use of parts having special geometry and the use of a plurality of mechanically and individually adjustable pedestals. Installation of such a device is time consuming and requires an additional labor for assembling. Furthermore, a provision of two thermal contact interfaces in each of the devices reduces thermal efficiency.
Thus, a common disadvantage of all above-described devices is that, for maintaining the parts to be interconnected, e.g., a heatsink and the device from which heat is to be removed, they utilize mechanical means, such as threaded connections, spring clips, insertable legs, adhesive bands, etc. Installation of such fixing devices in place demands that a sufficient room to be available in a printed circuit board for mechanical attachment means. This makes the aforementioned conventional devices and methods inconvenient or unsuitable for use and may lead to an increase in the production cost in general.
Another problem associated with the use of heatsinks used for removal of heat from electronic devices that can be mounted on PC boards is electromagnetic interference that may occur during operation of electronic devices, especially those that have high-degree of integration and compact design. More specifically, when such a device, e.g., a microprocessor, is coupled with a heatspreader or lid and a heatsink, the electromagnetic noise propagates from the die and package to the heatspreader and then to the heatsink which effectively acts as an antenna to further radiate the electromagnetic interference (EMI) produced by the microprocessor. As the EMI is coupled to neighboring components, it interferes with their individual performance, which may, in turn, affect the overall performance of a system. Because of the negative effects of EMI and because the level of acceptable radiated EMI is subject to strict regulatory limits, it is desirable to contain or suppress the EMI produced by a component.
All known devices used for suppressing the EMI are based on grounding a heatsink by connecting it to the PC board casing or other grounded parts via wires, springs, lugs, bolts, or similar elements. This involves the use of additional grounding wiring elements that require mechanical connections to the PC board via soldering, threaded connections, springs, or the like. Some grounding apparatuses may require a specially modified heatsink while others may interfere with the transfer of heat between the component and the heatsink. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,683,796 describes an enclosure with springable tabs, while U.S. Pat. No. 6,583,987 describes a grounded metallic shield that surrounds the source of EMI and requires an additional space and adds to complexity of assembling.